Communication, association, and affiliation are primary social needs of any normal individual. As individuals come together and form social, professional, cultural, ethnic, recreational or other group associations, the need for efficient yet low-cost communication tools increases. Many organizations have a variety of tools at their disposal to communicate and collaborate. A major issue is how to leverage these tools to maximize their benefits and, ultimately, the ability of the organization to communicate effectively.
Many organizations designate access to communication tools based upon different access levels of individuals, often based on the group dynamics, group goals and relevance of an individual's role to group goals. Thus, a variety of communication methods have been used to keep organizations focused on their common goals, despite these different access levels. Each of these methods can facilitate communication, but there has still not been a unified way of bringing a group together offline and online that would enable group members to define the group structure, share information, form communication mediums and seamlessly manage new and current members without excessive overhead management. Past attempts at organizing and integrating all the varied communication tools have been inadequate.
For example, organizing and integrating varied communication tools utilizing the internet has been attempted. However, these efforts have not adequately addressed the need for a user-friendly, information-sharing resource with little group structure overhead management, which includes, along with all of the plurality of varied communication techniques, providing the opportunity for simplified sharing and networking of groups over the World Wide Web. Previous attempts in the market to present a solution to the problem of group organization and communication have had limited success.
A number of companies in the market have attempted to present a solution to the problem of group organization and communication. For example, Google offers several on-line office tools that permit a group formation interface, which allows creation of groups, setup of mailing lists, and creation of individual member profiles. Google also offers a calendar tool at a separate web address, but it is not integrated with other Google tools to enable group communication and access of the calendar. That is, the administrator or leader of a group would have to set up the Google calendar and Google email lists separately. Each user would have to be added twice, in two different systems.
In another example, Microsoft Network (MSN) groups offer group community interface that allows group formation, messaging, photo-sharing, file-management and calendars. Some features of MSN groups, such as group messaging, require the installation of MSN proprietary MSN software. This can be problematic in certain situations because many groups have users that utilize MacIntosh, Linux, or other non-Microsoft operating systems. Such users often cannot or do not want to install, usually non-compatible, software onto their computers. Microsoft Sharepoint services allows users to create a community portal wherein they can create announcement, events, links, discussion, and documents, but it utilizes Microsoft's proprietary Windows server system. Further, it has to be hosted by the group, in that, they must have their own server and a server administrator). To use all the features of a Sharepoint system, the users must utilize a Windows operating system, which puts MacIntosh, Linux, Palm and other non-Windows operating systems at a disadvantage.
A further example is Yahoo®, which offers features like Messages, Files, Links, and a Calendar. However, the creation of a YahooGroup can be difficult for many users and has limited customizing options.
The current invention provides a method and system for organizing group communications. More specifically, the current invention provides a method and system for organizing group communications wherein individuals within the group may have differing levels of communication within the group. The system of the subject invention provides penetration, assembly and integration of group membership and leadership structure into the various functionalities. The combination and summarization of features, as well as the agility of the seamless integration of all aspects of group management provide advantages to the system of the subject invention not found in prior systems.